Minister for Education Norma Foley has urged Leaving Cert students to follow the public health guidelines that have been introduced to classrooms.
The State exams start tomorrow, with thousands of sixth-year students sitting the first of their exams with English paper one.
Many classrooms and schools have been adapted from their usual setup in order to facilitate the exams.
And speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, Minister Foley said students who do not feel well on the day of their exam should not come to the examination centre.
"A student feeling unwell does not come to the exam centre. This shows the foresight of the accredited grades system. It affords students the opportunity to realise it they're not feeling well, and they don't take the written exams, but they do have the comfort and the security of the accredited grades process," she said.
For the second year in succession, students will have the option of predicted grades as well as their exam results.
This is something that the majority have opted for, according to Minister Foley.
"99% of students have opted for the accredited grades process and in or around 91% have opted to take one or more subjects as written exams.
"About 40,000 students have opted to take five or more of the written subjects so I think really results like that are testament to the very positive and good decision to give that an opportunity for students to avail of the accredited grades, the written exams or indeed a combination of both."
